My heart stops, and I grab my stuff and head on over to Sienna’s house. Is the baby okay? Hope everything is okay. Pulling up to Sienna’s house, I park my car outside and rush in and freeze. Standing in front of me, looking like a couple of newlyweds, are Axel and Olivia. The last thing I heard from Liv was that she was high-tailing it to the Caribbean somewhere with her family and her bestie after her blow-up with Axel, and now they are standing in front of me looking so fricken happy.
“I knew it. I knew he was the one for you,” I say, rushing over to her and pulling her into a bear hug, making her squeal.
“Derrick, let the girl go, you’re going to squeeze her to death,” Axel says, acting all uber protective over her.
“Sorry, sorry. I’m just so freaking happy.” I look between the two of them. I can’t believe this is happening. How the hell did this happen?
“Stop hogging our guests of honor,” Sienna says, walking in with Ryder on her hip. My little Ryder poo holds out his hands for me, and I grab him from his mother and squish his chubbycheeks, making him giggle. I love this kid. One day, I’m hoping I get to be this lucky.
“Welcome to the family,” Sienna says, welcoming Olivia to the Dirty Texas family because, let's be serious, we’ve never seen Axel this gone for over a woman before. He’s all in, you can see it on his handsome face. It’s like Olivia has been able to make Axel’s intensity simmer a bit, he is still very much Axel, but just a bit sunnier. “Come, let me show you around,” Sienna asks Olivia, and they vanish, while Axel teases Ryder.
“What the hell, Axel?” I ask him once Olivia has left.
“What?” He looks at me, genuinely surprised and maybe a little afraid.
“Um, the fact that Olivia is here in LA, not in her castle in England with her fiancé.”
Axel glares at me. “Do not ever mention him,” he warns.
Oh. Okay. Touchy subject. “I thought she was away with Ivy somewhere away from you.”
“We kind of ran into each other on an island and one thing led to another,” Axel confesses.
“You romanced her with your dick.”
“Derrick!” Axel chastises me as he looks at Ryder.
“He has no idea what I’m saying.” I tickle the little feral in my arms, making him giggle and forget about the fact that Uncle Derrick said a rude word.
“Did she tell you about the photo her sister sent her?” Axel asks.
“Um, no.”
Axel rolls his eyes. “Penny took a photo of me passed out and tried to play it off that we had slept together. She sent it to Olivia, and when she saw me again, I got a drink all over me.”
“So, you should, I can’t believe you would sleep with Penny, that woman is a bit …” Watch your words, Derrick. Sienna will kill you if Ryder starts repeating after me.
“I didn’t. She set it up to make it look like I did to hurt her,” Axel reassures me.
“Poor Livvy, she must have been heartbroken.”
“She was. It took me calling Penny and pretending that Olivia wasn’t listening in, and confirming from her mouth that nothing happened between us and that she was setting Livvy up,” Axel explains.
“And she did?”
He nods. “She did. Thankfully, otherwise, I don’t think I would have been able to get Livvy to believe me. Her sister is diabolical.”
I won’t argue over that. “And then you whisked her away to your love shack in LA to what?”
“I don’t know, convince her to break off her engagement,” Axel says as he runs his fingers through his hair. “She can’t marry him.”
“Are you going to protect her if she cancels her engagement because you know she is going to go against her family, and that girl is loyal,” I explain to him.
“I’ll move heaven and earth for her, D. I’m all in,” Axel tells me honestly.
Wow. “The mighty Axel Taylor has fallen.” I smirk.
“Screw you.” He chuckles. “But yeah, I have.” He giggles like a love-struck schoolgirl. Who is this man standing before me? It’s cute.
